Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1887-03-16
A BEAUTIFUL EAR
SINGULAR CASE OF A PATHETIC
OUTGROWTH OF SENSlBILITY.

~
Is OUTGRoWTH OF SENSlBILITY.
Story Told to an Expert In Nervous
Affections - A Particularly Hideou.
Pair Of Ears-A Sort of Holy Grail
Quest.
heard OF a pathetic outgrowth of nervous
sensibiiity the other day. A professional
y man who lives at the West End, and who IS
not only a painfully self-conscious man, but
8 also one given to observing things about him
9 with great minuteness, has become so acutely
. susceptible to the essential ugliness of the
human ear that be scarcely sees anything else
In the people about him than their ears. To
. physician, an expert in nervous affections,
whom he was wise enough to consult, this
gentleman told his story somewhat after this
fashion: ut was as many as five or six years
ago that the sight Of . particularly hideous
pair of ears, one Of which had been slit in q
CHASTITY manner in some accident or fight, set
me to rejecting on the extraordinary caprice
OF Providence in setting, in the most conspic-
uous place upon the head of its curious
earthly achievement, such utterly absurd and
unsigLtly contrivances as human ears. The
ear is useful, no doubt; but might not an in
finite ingenuity and an o~mnipotent choice
have provided man with an auditory appli-
ance less hideous than this convoluted ex-
crescence!
IT UP.
II was led to ask myself, is there any such
thing as q beautiful human ear! I looked up |
all the passages in polite literature in which
the human ear is referred to, and found not
only that such passages are extremely few,
but that the beauty referred to-an the COM
parsons, Of delicate, pink edged feminine to
the translucent interiors Of sea shells, and the
like, are simply comparative. No poet ever
thought, so far as I could find, of finding alb
solute beauty in the ear. It is only as q
pendent or an accompaniment, less hideous
than usual, to the beautiful head and Face of
q lovely woman, that the actual ear itself. as
apart from the faculty Of hearing, ever be-
comes tolerable in poetry. In art the ear is
a thing to be assembled; no realist was ever
SO unblushing as faithfully to paint the ear as
it is. Photography reveals it in all its ugli-
ness; but poetry bears the same relation to
art that the dissection of the body does to the
love of humanity.
"The running of these through my mind
led me to start a sort of Holy Grail quest for
q really beautiful human ear, and at the
o0AAA0 SsA1S = u AySCA oS0AShAAS V009
whenever l got upon a street car or a railway
train, and as I walked Town the crowded
streets. all the ugliest ears, with the in
s%tinctive eagerness of a connoisseur. The ear
habit grew upon me-. I became q sort of col
lector of ears. When I ann into a railway
train filled withpeople, my eye ran Town the
long rows Of ears next the aisle to see whether ]
there was a vacancy in the devious lines I
l might fill with my own. That row Z
of ears, to a man who had fallen into the !
habit of observing nothing else but the ears, /
horribly suggestive of a sea serpentl Z
NOTHING BUT EARS, EARS, EARS. /
II say that all this began five or six years q
ago; but, of course, my mania-for such it Il
mas become-did not all at one take this seri- I
ous form. 1t has been q gradual growth. y
Now l find it threatening, perhaps not my =
mental balance, for l feel capable of main !.
aiming that, but my peace of mind certainly, i,
md all my old sensibility to the beauty of the Ii
form and the loveliness of life about Y
na My old keen sense of the beautiful L
ament, as a fallen angel might lament the )
Oys of paradise. For me there is nothing in
he world hut ears, ears, ears. The pleasure
hat l sometimes feel in meeting a specimen .
ess hideous than the rest does not repay me Z
or the ofense which the uniform dead level
t ll-shapen growth inficts upon me; and l
m resolved, if medical science can do any, in
hing for so strange a malady, to take the in
tmost possible advantage of it II it could d.
influence my organs of sight as to make it 10
npossible for me ever again to see the hui hs
IAN ear at all, it would be a consummation N
to be wished" re
I understand that ne eminent physician "
onsulted in this case was completely nom al
lussed for a time, but has at last succeeded sp
so influencing the sufferers thoughts and III
'tention by diverting them to other chan ne
lis that he is already somewhat less poisn-
1tly conscious Of the ears he sees; that the yo
'ctor is, in fact, fighting the old mania with no
new one, and intends to check the new be III
re it, in its turn, shall take possession of the 40
'tient, as did the other. The case, l rave nc
doubt, will suggest to more than one 70
adler something of a similar sort in his va
'owledge or experience. 1t is only one of ~, .,
any morbid outgrowths of the keen con- 49,
the rawne Of sensibility that ~
erwork aud intense mental strain have ~
Post. ~